‘I get suppressed:’ pro- and anti-abortion activists’ folk theories of platform governance and shadowbanning

Riedl, Martin J.; Martin, Zelly C.; Woolley, Samuel C.

doi:10.1080/1369118x.2023.2289976

Information, Communication & Society

2023

DOI: 10.1080/1369118x.2023.2289976

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‘I get suppressed:’ pro- and anti-abortion activists’ folk theories of platform governance and shadowbanning

Martin J. Riedl,

Zelly C. Martin,

Samuel C. Woolley

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2024

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Cited by 2 publications

References 37 publications

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Infrastructural platform violence: How women and queer journalists and activists in Lebanon experience abuse on WhatsApp

Riedl,

El-Masri,

Trauthig

et al. 2024

New Media & Society

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Technology-facilitated abuse and violence disproportionately affect marginalized people. While researchers have explored this issue in the context of public-facing social media platforms, less is known about how it plays out on more private messaging apps. This study draws on in-depth interviews with women and queer journalists and activists in Lebanon to illustrate their experiences of infrastructural platform violence on WhatsApp. Specifically, we distinguish between identity-based violence propagated on platforms, and violence propagated by platforms due to infrastructural neglect of vulnerable populations. Our results document how perpetrators employ the affordances of WhatsApp in harmful ways. We highlight the individual emotional and reputational toll of doxxing and harassment campaigns. The study also showcases the societal ramifications of silencing and self-censorship, as well as infrastructural platform failures. Findings underscore the need to shift attention in platform studies toward populations and geographies whose safety has systemically been neglected by technology companies.

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Infrastructural platform violence: How women and queer journalists and activists in Lebanon experience abuse on WhatsApp

Riedl,

El-Masri,

Trauthig

et al. 2024

New Media & Society

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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Moral orders of pleasing the algorithm

Haapoja,

Savolainen,

Reinikainen

et al. 2024

New Media & Society

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This article examines how ‘pleasing the algorithm’, or engaging with algorithms to gain rewards such as visibility for one’s content on digital platforms, is treated from a moral perspective. Drawing from Harré’s work on moral orders, our qualitative analysis of Reddit messages focused on social media content creation illustrates how so-called folk theories of algorithms are used for moral evaluations about the responsibilities and worthiness of different actors. Moral judgements of the actions of content creators encompass ideas of individuals and their agency in relation to algorithmic systems, and these ideas influence the assessment of algorithm-pleasing as an integral part of the craft, as condemnable behaviour, or as a necessary evil. In this way, the feedback loops that arrange people and code into algorithmic systems inevitably make theories about those systems also theories about humans and their behaviour and agency.

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‘I get suppressed:’ pro- and anti-abortion activists’ folk theories of platform governance and shadowbanning

Cited by 2 publications

References 37 publications

Infrastructural platform violence: How women and queer journalists and activists in Lebanon experience abuse on WhatsApp

Infrastructural platform violence: How women and queer journalists and activists in Lebanon experience abuse on WhatsApp

Moral orders of pleasing the algorithm

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